LINCOLN AND EXECUTIVE POWER TOPIC OF ROTHBAUM LECTURE AT ECU

Posted on: September 13, 2011

Dr. Jennifer Weber, an assistant professor of history at the University of Kansas, will discuss “Lincoln and Executive Power” at East Central University Monday [SEPT. 19] in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Weber, who specializes in Civil War studies, will speak at the Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Public Affairs at 6:30 p.m. in the Estep Multimedia Center in the Cole University Center.

The free lecture also will mark the university’s annual observance of Constitution Day, the day that commemorates Sept. 17, 1789, when the final draft of the U.S. Constitution was signed by members of the Constitutional Convention.

The Rothbaum Lecture is funded through an endowment established by the late Julian Rothbaum with a $25,000 gift to the ECU Foundation Inc. that was matched by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. He also established an endowment to fund the George Nigh Award for ECU’s top graduating senior.

Rothbaum, who lived in Tulsa, was a long-time leader in Oklahoma civic affairs, a 1986 inductee into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and a former member of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and the University of Oklahoma Regents.

Weber is a native Californian who worked for several years in her home state as a journalist and political aide. Her main interest is the Civil War, especially the seams where political, social and military history meet. She also has active interests in the 19th century U.S., war and society, and the American presidency.

Her first book, “Copperheads,” published by Oxford University Press in 2006 about the antiwar movement in the Civil War North, was widely reviewed and has become a highly regarded study of Civil War politics and society.

Members of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, will have copies of Weber’s book available for $20. She will sign the books after the lecture.

Her second book, “America's Bloodiest Days,” published by National Geographic in 2010, is a children's book about the Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath.

Her current research projects are on presidential power in wartime and on the effects of the Union and Confederate drafts during the Civil War.

Weber is very active in the field of Lincoln studies, serving on the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Association and as a trustee for the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. She has spoken extensively around the country on Lincoln and other aspects of the Civil War.

Weber received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, a master’s degree in history from California State University-Sacramento and both master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Princeton University.

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